Governing Board
Board Members
Prof TAN Eng Chye
President, National University of Singapore
Professor Tan is the President of the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is on the boards of multiple national agencies in Singapore. He received the Public Administration Medal (Gold) at Singapore’s National Day Awards in 2014 for his outstanding contributions to education. He was awarded the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, which honours exceptional alumni in the areas of scholarship, teaching, academic administration and public service, by Yale University in 2018. Prof Tan was also conferred an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Southampton in 2018 in recognition of his achievements as “an innovative and exceptional teacher, and then as a distinguished and respected leader in academia”.
In 2022, Prof Tan was conferred the title of Knight of the French Order of the Legion of Honour (Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) – the highest French distinction for military and civil accomplishments – for his distinguished contributions in education and research.
Mr Russell THAM
Head, Emerging Technologies Temasek International Pte Ltd
Mr. Russell Tham is Head of Emerging Technologies at Temasek, focused on investing globally in deep tech ventures grounded in STEM innovation. Prior to joining Temasek in 2020, Russell was President of New Enterprises and Ventures at ST Engineering.
Russell has over two decades of experience building and scaling new markets for Applied Materials, a Silicon Valley headquartered technology MNC, where he was President, Applied Materials Southeast Asia and concurrently held global corporate-level business development responsibilities for new markets. Russell oversaw the company’s Singapore infrastructure expansion into manufacturing, supply chain, R&D and product development for global markets.
In addition, Russell serves as Chairman of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) Board.
Russell holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Singapore.
Prof CHAN Siew Hwa
Co-Director, Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N), Nanyang Technological University
Professor Chan is the Fellow of Academy of Engineering, Singapore, and the President’s Chair in Energy, leading the hydrogen and fuel cell research in Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is one of the founding members and a Co-Director of the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).
Mr Andre OEI
Director, Energy Division, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore
Andre is Director of Energy Division in the Ministry of Trade and Industry. He oversees Singapore’s energy policies and strategies, fostering the development of competitive gas and electricity markets, and promoting energy cooperation with international partners. He works with the Energy Market Authority of Singapore and other agencies to drive Singapore’s energy transition, to ensure a clean, affordable and reliable energy future.
Dr David DANIELSON
Breakthrough Energy Ventures
David is the Managing Director at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an adjunct professor at Stanford University and investor in multiple start-ups in the energy sector. David served as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE), where he led the clean-energy innovation funding agency in the creation of new R&D and organizational models for high-impact climate-tech innovation.
Mr Bernd HEID
Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company
Global Lead for McKinsey’s Platform for Climate Technologies and Hydrogen Service Line
Bernd is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Cologne office. He is a member of the leadership team in the automotive sector and a leader of McKinsey’s work in the commercial vehicle segment as well as product development and procurement. Bernd is also a leader of McKinsey’s global hydrogen activities and works with the Hydrogen Council, Global Battery Alliance and World Economic Forum on the Future of Mobility.
Prof Thomas JARAMILLO
Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University
Professor Jaramillo is Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis at Stanford University. His research efforts are aimed to develop materials and processes that can accelerate important chemical transformations related to energy conversion to enable the development of cost-effective, clean energy technologies.
Prof LI Can
Director, State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Professor Li is the Director of the Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Director of State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chairman of the Molecular Spectroscopy Society of China. His research interests span spectroscopic characterization of catalysts, catalytic reactions, environmental catalysis and heterogeneous chiral catalysis.
Prof YEOH Lean Weng
Chief Sustainability Officer, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)
Professor Yeoh is the Chief Sustainability Officer at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, and board member of multiple national agencies in Singapore. He is responsible for the development of R&D strategy and management of Singapore’s national R&D programmes in urban solutions covering energy, water and land & livability sectors to meet Singapore’s national needs.
Centre Management
Prof YAN Ning
Centre Director, CHI
Professor Yan is the Centre Director of CHI and Professor at Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NUS. He received B.Sc. and PhD degrees in Chemistry from Peking University working with Prof. Yuan Kou. After a Marie Curie Fellowship at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland with Prof. Paul Dyson, he joined NUS in 2012 and established the Lab of Green Catalysis. Prof. Yan works actively in advanced catalysis, renewable energy, and sustainable chemistry, for which he was duly recognized by recent awards from the Royal Society of Chemistry, American Chemical Society and National University of Singapore, among others. He is listed as a Highly Cited Researcher 2020 (Chemistry) by Clarivate, and is awarded the NRF Investigatorship (Class of 2022).
Past Distinguished Members
Prof LIU Bin
Founding Director, CHI
Professor Liu Bin is Deputy President (Research and Technology) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Prior to her current appointment, she served as Senior Vice Provost (Faculty & Institutional Development) from 2022 to 2023, Vice President (Research and Technology) from 2019 to 2021, and Head of Department at the NUS Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from 2017 to 2021. She currently holds the appointment of Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor.
Prof Liu Bin graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Nanjing University, and a PhD in Chemistry from NUS. She received her postdoctoral training at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She joined NUS as an Assistant Professor in 2005, and was promoted to full professorship in 2016.
An internationally acclaimed leader in the field of organic functional materials, Prof Liu Bin has been highly recognised for her contributions in polymer chemistry and applications of organic nanomaterials for biomedical, environmental and energy research. Since 2014, she has been named annually among the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds by Thomson Reuters and the Top 1% Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate. In 2014, she co-founded LuminiCell, an NUS spin-off company that produces organic luminescent nanoparticles for use in biomedical applications.
Prof Liu Bin is a Fellow of the Singapore Academy of Engineering, Singapore National Academy of Sciences, Asia Pacific Academy of Materials, and the Royal Society of Chemistry in Britain. In 2022, she was elected as an international member of the US National Academy of Engineering. She serves on the editorial advisory boards of more than a dozen top peer-reviewed chemistry and materials journals. Since 2019, she has served as Deputy Editor of ACS Materials Letters.